Social Media Consultant & Digital Media Trainerhttps://paulsutton.co
Paul SuttonWed, 01 Aug 2018 11:37:11 +0000en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8https://paulsutton.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/PAULSUTTON_ICON_PURPLE-150x150.pngSocial Media Consultant & Digital Media Trainerhttps://paulsutton.co
3232My Biggest Mistake in a Decade of Blogginghttps://paulsutton.co/2018/08/01/biggest-blogging-mistake/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/08/01/biggest-blogging-mistake/#respondWed, 01 Aug 2018 08:14:45 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4160The first blog post I ever wrote was some time in 2008. Though I can roughly pinpoint the date, I have no idea whatsoever what that post was about. At the time I was running an ecommerce company dedicated to luxury pet accessories. Yes, really. It was called The Pet Extraordinarium. Again, yes really. It […]

The first blog post I ever wrote was some time in 2008. Though I can roughly pinpoint the date, I have no idea whatsoever what that post was about.

At the time I was running an ecommerce company dedicated to luxury pet accessories. Yes, really. It was called The Pet Extraordinarium. Again, yes really. It was the brainchild of my wife and I, and we were doing well until the small matter of a global financial meltdown wiped out the hopes of a generation. But that’s another story.

In the mid 2000s, blogging hit the mainstream. It had exploded over the previous few years, and communications professionals were becoming more and more interested in the medium as a marketing tactic. That’s how I came to it; blogging about topics related to pets in a bid to shill cat collars and dog beds. I remember being amazed when one post I wrote about a dog that was supposedly starved in the name of of “modern art” went viral.

Around that time I also blogged as a cat. ‘The Jake Files’ was my attempt to ingratiate myself with an online community of cat lovers who, for some reason still alien to me, insisted on writing in the voice of their pets. It was in the days when forums were big and blog posts written by cats created chat. What a time to be alive.

(You want the ‘mistake’ thing I referenced in the title, don’t you? I’m getting to that. But it’s important you understand the background.)

Blogging with an End Goal

When The Pet Extraordinarium went to the great kennel in the sky and I returned to agency life, I established a blog for the company and had the job of encouraging others to contribute. Thus began a particular challenge that would last another five years or so before I eventually established my own consultancy; that of endless badgering of agency staff to ‘please, please write your one allocated blog post of the month by such-and-such date, please?’

My own blogging journey really took off around nine months after I established that first agency medium. With the realisation that that particular agency did not hold the key to all my professional hopes and dreams, I set about putting a plan in place to get another job. And in order to do so, I started a blog of my own to showcase my thoughts and opinions on digital, social media and public relations matters.

This very blog you are reading now has its genesis in those first posts. It’s been through four incarnations since 2009, but all of the posts I’ve written have followed me across Blogger and Tumblr and WordPress and whatever the blog has been called down the years.

So you’d think that with nine years’ and over 500 blog posts behind me I’d have this entire thing nailed, wouldn’t you?

To an extent, I do. I write for people not for search engines. I write what I feel passionate about at the time, not about keywords. I write with a distinctive voice and am just ‘me’, rather than trying to be something or someone I’m not. And that has served me extremely well.

But there is one thing I got wrong from day one and that, even as I write this, I’m still getting wrong. I have never focused on building my email subscription list. Never.

This was, and still is, a huge mistake. Massive.

The Value of Blogging

This mistake stems from the fact that my blog grew very organically. I started writing to help me get a job, and once I’d achieved that I carried on because what I was writing was getting a great reaction. Beyond that, some of my posts were syndicated to other platforms and I started getting invited to do other stuff, like writing guest posts and speaking at events.

I realised very early the value of blogging, but I had a very laissez faire attitude towards it. I never had any sort of end goal in mind. Or any goal at all, if I’m honest. And so things like actively encouraging my readers to subscribe, using sign up forms properly or even pop-ups never bothered me. I knew I should do them but…meh…

At the end of 2014 I established my own consultancy. I needed clients, and without them my wife and three young kids would have starved. Which wouldn’t have been the ideal outcome.

All of the blogging and time I’d spent building a community on social networks around the blog paid off. For the first couple of years of my business, about 90% of my work came from people who already knew me as a result of all the time I’d spent publishing my thoughts and opinions. My new website started to rise up the Google SERPs, driven by fresh blog content.

But that masked an issue that only became apparent early in 2017.

Subscribers Are Important Not For Readers

In February last year I launched Digital Download, a new type of conference for PR and comms professionals focused on collaborative learning. I eagerly emailed my subscribers and stood back with a huge grin on my face awaiting the deluge of demand for tickets.

Deluge: an overwhelming flood. Trickle: a small flow. One of those nouns is more accurate than the other.

It was only around this time that it really struck me how much of a clanger I’d made when it came to building my email subscriber list. The average open rate of marketing emails in the public relations industry is 20.21% according to Mailchimp. The average click-through rate is just 1.63%. The average website conversion rate is somewhere south of 2%.

Work the maths of that lot and to sell 50 tickets through email alone I’d need a list of about 15,000 people. I have nowhere near that many people on my email list.

Not. Even. Close.

Now the fact is that Digital Download and all of the subsequent events I’ve held since have by and large sold out. The emails I send are value-led not sales-led, so the open rates and click-through rates are much higher than the average, besides which an email campaign needs repetition not one single hit.

And again, the blog has played a huge role. Inbound marketing combined with Facebook remarketing to those who read my ramblings has proven very successful.

I’m not relying on email to sell tickets. But life would be so much easier if I’d put the effort in nine years ago and consistently fed my email list. I’d find it easier to promote The Autumn Sessions for instance (you really need to check them out, by the way, as they’re bloody awesome). And I’d have more organic enquiries for consultancy.

Don’t Make the Same Mistake

As I referenced above, I am still making this mistake to this very day. Did you notice the subscriber pop up on this post? No, that’s because there isn’t one. Do you feel compelled to sign up due to the strategically placed subscription form? No, because I’ve still not sorted that out.

If I think of the tens or hundreds of thousands of people who’ve read my stuff down the years and compare that to the size of my subscriber list, it’s a real face palm moment. If I ever manage to complete the build of the new website I’ve been working on for the last few months, I’ll address this, but it’ll still be a massive missed opportunity.

I’ve never chased subscribers. It’s not why I started writing or why I’ve continued to do so for a decade. But if you’re blogging now or are starting to write, make sure you do. Because even if, like me, you don’t have an end goal in mind just now and are writing just to get your voice into the world, one day you might want that email list.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/08/01/biggest-blogging-mistake/feed/0Introducing The Autumn Sessionshttps://paulsutton.co/2018/07/25/introducing-the-autumn-sessions/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/07/25/introducing-the-autumn-sessions/#respondWed, 25 Jul 2018 05:53:16 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4140After the wonderful feedback from last year’s Digital Download regional workshops and June’s Digital Download Live, I’m excited to introduce to you The Autumn Sessions, a series of workshops and masterclasses focused on arming you with the very latest thinking in digital communications strategy. This year’s line up features six full-day regional workshops and two […]

After the wonderful feedback from last year’s Digital Download regional workshops and June’s Digital Download Live, I’m excited to introduce to you The Autumn Sessions, a series of workshops and masterclasses focused on arming you with the very latest thinking in digital communications strategy.

This year’s line up features six full-day regional workshops and two topic-specific masterclasses. It runs from late September through to early December, visiting six cities along the way.

All of the events are highly practical in nature, devised to boost your knowledge and confidence while also providing hands-on experience. They’re open forums where questions and conversation are not only encouraged but embraced; there’s no such thing as a silly question at a Digital Download event!

And if you’ve attended a Digital Download event before, you’ll know that collaborative working is at the fore, with the sharing of stories and experiences contributing heavily to the value that delegates take away from the day.

Regional Workshops

The six regional workshops take place in London, Bournemouth, Oxford, Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow. Each is a full day intended to cover a fairly broad mix of highly relevant social and digital communications topics. If you attended one of last year’s workshops, this year will act not only as a refresher but as a further building block.

The intention is that after the day you will be able to talk confidently to clients, colleagues or your boss about the latest developments and be be able to build and implement informed digital strategies.

This year’s Sessions have an agenda that features:

How to adapt to the latest algorithm updates on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter

How to use detailed custom audience targeting to run effective paid campaigns on social networks

How to build a follower base on Instagram, and how to use Stories and IGTV

What you need to know about how artificial Intelligence is affecting communications and some of the tools you can start to use

How voice search and podcasting are growing rapidly and how you can use audio marketing strategically for communications campaigns

How to adapt to changes in influencer marketing to ensure you’re working to best practice

The workshops are intended to be accessible to everyone, whether you’re you’re working in-house, within an agency or are an independent consultant. They’re limited to a maximum of 14 people to ensure maximum hands-on time.

For full details on dates, locations, cost and to book tickets, click here.

“In the first week after Paul’s course I created a financial ROI of 45:1 for a client’s event using tips on Facebook marketing. I have new knowledge and extra confidence to service my clients correctly in today’s ever changing world of social media.” Becki Rogerson, Hop PR

“I bagged my first pure social media client just two weeks after the workshop. I’ve been a PR specialist for over two decades, but the workshop really gave me the confidence to know that I could also thrive in the social media space as a communications expert.”Rachel Follett, Reach PR

Masterclasses

This year’s two masterclasses are a direct result of requests for more information after shorter sessions at Digital Download Live 2018. Each is a four-hour deep dive into the relevant topic, held at The London Art House in Islington, London.

Influencer Marketing Masterclass

The first, on 20th September, is an Influencer Marketing Masterclass run with top family lifestyle blogger and presenter Emily Leary, also known as A Mummy Too. During this session you’ll work in groups to research and evaluate influencers, devise an outreach programme and determine the most appropriate evaluation metrics, all under the watchful eyes of Emily and myself.

As well as challenging your thinking, we’ll be giving you specific invaluable insight from a number of influencers on how they work best with brands and what approaches they respond best to.

Podcasting Masterclass

The second masterclass takes place on 4th October and is a hands-on guide to creating a podcast. You’ll be walked through the entire process of recording, editing, hosting, publishing, syndicating and promoting your own podcast.

You’ll get tuition on the hardware (microphones, pop filters, mixers) and software (Audacity, Zencastr, Blubrry/Libsyn) you need to create a professional podcast, as well as learn how to get your podcast syndicated to iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify and other podcast aggregators.

The masterclass is limited to just 12 people working in three teams, and by the end of the session you’ll be armed with all the knowledge you need to start recording your own podcast.

“I loved the small group, as we could ask stupid questions without being judged! Made for a workshop feel. Really practical, actionable content and a great group size. I came away with masses of information that we can put into practice right away.”Kate Hartley, Carrot Communications

“The personal attention of the Masterclasses is lacking in other courses I’ve attended. It was an excellent day in a relaxed atmosphere.”Donna Duggan, Independent Consultant

The Digital Download Autumn Sessions are on sale now. If you have any questions or specific requirements, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

I really hope to see you there.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/07/25/introducing-the-autumn-sessions/feed/0Are We Just ‘Over’ PR Conferences?https://paulsutton.co/2018/05/21/pr-conferences-events/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/05/21/pr-conferences-events/#respondMon, 21 May 2018 10:32:58 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4126“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” On the #FuturePRoof podcast a couple of weeks back, Stephen Waddington lamented the state of the communications industry conference circuit in the UK, suggesting that we have “event fatigue” and that […]

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”

On the #FuturePRoof podcast a couple of weeks back, Stephen Waddington lamented the state of the communications industry conference circuit in the UK, suggesting that we have “event fatigue” and that there are “too many organisations organising too many events”.

It may seem like an odd thing for me to write about considering I’m running Digital Download Live 2018 on 7th June, but I’m not one to hide and I think it’s a question worth addressing through the lens of someone who a) has been attending industry conferences for ten years, and b) runs a ‘conference’ himself.

Stephen’s point was to encourage event organisers to really think about what they’re putting on. And I agree with him 100%.

Outdated Models

The whole reason I came up with the concept for Digital Download Live back in Autumn 2016 was essentially because I was sick of the ‘same old, same old’ conferences I’d been attending. I’d grown weary of the ‘sit in a huge auditorium passively listening to people talk for six hours’ thing.

Sure, I’ve learned stuff from many of the events I’ve attended, but their value had been on the wane for a number of years. So much so that since I set up independently at the end of 2014 I’d not attended one single industry ‘conference’.

I did break that duck at the back end of last year, but I attended a conference with a very singular goal in mind, which was to inform what I’d be doing with my own event this year. And though it was useful in that respect, lo and behold the conference I attended was exactly the same dull format I’d sat through time and time again. The conference ‘model’ is outdated.

There’s really no excuse for just gathering a bunch of well-known speakers and putting them on a stage or in panels. It’s lazy and it lacks imagination.

When I put Digital Download Live together I purposefully mixed everything up. Yes there are a couple of parts where the audience will sit and listen, but for the most part it’s highly interactive. I believe that you learn by doing not listening, so rather than lecture people on influence marketing theory (for example), let’s get everyone to actually do it there and then!

One of two workshops I’ve organised is about podcasting and I’m trying to get everyone in the room to actually make a podcast that will be published the week after the event. We’ll take them through the entire process, from ideation and planning to recording, editing and publishing.

Now let me be clear, this is a massive headache! It looked great on paper when I came up with the idea, but my cohorts and I are still struggling with how to actually make this work on the day; how to not only ensure that all 50 people have a hands on session but that they actually produce something valuable at the end of it!

The logistical challenges of this are numerous. But does that mean we shouldn’t do it? Does it hell! It’s all part of giving Digital Download Live delegates an unforgettable day that they’ll remember and genuinely learn from.

Poor Agendas

Now I’m not saying I’ve managed to single-handedly re-imagine the communications conference. Far from it; I’m not that smart! But at least I’m trying to do something different.

A few weeks back saw probably the largest PR event in the calendar take place. It was run by a very well-known media house, and delegates were paying up to £800 for a ticket (which in itself is insane). I had a long look over the agenda, and things like artificial intelligence and voice recognition were nowhere to be found. I searched the code of the website and there wasn’t even a mention of AI on it.

Seriously? Two of the biggest, most important changes in PR happening at the present time and this supposedly industry-leading event doesn’t even mention them?!

We as an industry seriously need to rethink events.

Conferences as Cash Cows

But let’s take another view; that of those running these conferences. From an event organiser’s perspective, events are not cheap to put on.

By the time you’ve hired a decent venue, paid to water and feed everyone, shipped in any additional tech or staffing support you might need, advertised and marketed the event, branded it, paid speakers (if you pay them) and then paid direct expenses like hotel rooms and travel and everything else, the margin on tickets is pretty low. Trust me on this!

That’s why events all have sponsors. When you add sponsorship fees and ticket sales together, suddenly you can create something pretty lucrative. Stephen said to me the other day while discussing this that: “Most events are little more than another income stream for media groups and organisers”.

And at the end of the day, therein lies the problem.

The sad truth behind why there are so many conferences, and the reason they’re all the same with the same agenda and all the same speakers, is because they’re little more than cash cows.

This is a sad state of affairs. Aren’t conferences and events supposed to be for the benefit of those attending?

That’s the angle I’ve taken with Digital Download Live. Do I make money on it? Sure. Is it a lot of money? Hell no!

For starters I don’t have event sponsors, and if I were to sit down and work out how much I get paid for every hour I put into it compared to how much I get paid for consultancy, it would make absolutely no financial sense whatsoever.

So why bother?

Events That Provide Experiences

As well as being bored by what was already out there, there were two other reasons I started Digital Download Live. Firstly (and I’m being very transparent about this), I thought it’d be a great way to expand my own business network. As Stephen said, most events are organised by media houses, so an event organised by an independent professional is, in theory at least, good for my awareness and reputation.

But second, and more pertinently, I genuinely want people to learn stuff that’s useful to them. Almost the raison d’etre of my business is to help people to help themselves. It’s front and centre of everything I do, and I can’t quite describe the satisfaction I gained hearing the amazing feedback after last year’s Digital Download.

I don’t have all the answers to AI or voice recognition or influence marketing or audio communications strategy or GDPR, but I do know others who are really informed in those areas and if I can bring all that knowledge together, that’s truly rewarding for me and I very much hope for those who subscribe to my blog or listen to my podcast or attend my events.

Looking at it that way, maybe me putting on Digital Download Live is as much driven by self-centred goals as a media house putting on a conference? It’s just that while their goal is profit, mine is self-actualisation.

Either way though, whichever way you look at it we can and should do better with public relations and communications conferences in the UK. It’s probably too much to hope for consolidation, as all the time organisations can make money from them they’re going to.

The challenge is therefore on us, as delegates, not to accept the status quo and to demand that event organisers do better.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/05/21/pr-conferences-events/feed/0It’s OK to Hate Instagram Storieshttps://paulsutton.co/2018/05/10/hate-instagram-stories/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/05/10/hate-instagram-stories/#respondThu, 10 May 2018 04:54:54 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4117If you’ve spoken to a social media marketing consultant recently they’ll probably have said to you something along the lines of: “Live video is what counts in social media nowadays. To beat the algorithms you need to start producing live video for Facebook/Instagram Stories”. Well listen up: No. You. Do. Not. There is no questioning […]

If you’ve spoken to a social media marketing consultant recently they’ll probably have said to you something along the lines of: “Live video is what counts in social media nowadays. To beat the algorithms you need to start producing live video for Facebook/Instagram Stories”.

Well listen up: No. You. Do. Not.

There is no questioning the fact that live video works well on Facebook at the current time and that Instagram Stories are big news. No argument from me on either front. But what I do take issue with is that live video is suitable for everyone. Or even that Instagram Stories is suitable for everyone.

Content Types v Personality Types

I recently spoke with Mark Schaefer about personal branding for the Digital Download podcast (and I seriously recommend you give that a listen). One of the things we talked about was finding a content type that you’re comfortable producing; something you enjoy and that resonates with your audience. And what dawned on me during and after that chat is that it really is OK to hate certain types of content.

I don’t just mean to find it difficult to produce them, but to actually despise them. Sure, it’s easy for me as a digital marketing consultant to sit here and say ‘you need to start a podcast’ or ‘you need to tweet ten times a day minimum’, but it’s not that simple.

For some people, the idea of sitting down and writing a 600 word blog post every week might be hellish. For others, documenting the ins and outs of your day with Instagram Stories might seem like the most puerile thing in the world ever. For others, live video makes you want to throw up in your mouth.

But you know what? That’s OK.

If you’d like to point me to the regulation that says you should be across all content forms at all times I’ll take this all back with a huge slice of humble pie sans cream. But otherwise, we all need to suck up a huge dose of reality.

Introverts v Extroverts

There are different personality types in this world. At a very basic level, introverts and extroverts. And different personality types have a preference for different content types. It’s easy for an extrovert to say “you need to be all over live video” and it’s easy for an introvert to say “you need to blog twice a week”. But neither perspective takes account of the person who’ll actually be producing that content.

So maybe the reason you’ve been struggling with what your social media guru has told you is simply because you’re not suited to what they’re suggesting?

It’s not that you can’t do it or don’t have it in you, it’s just that you’re not channeling your energies into the right places. Consider these lists from Mark Schaefer’s book ‘Known’:

Extrovert content forms:

Live video

Solo podcasts/videos

Twitter chats

Snapchat

Introvert content forms:

Blogging/writing

Webinars

Visual content

Podcasts/videos interviewing others

Ring any (alarm) bells?

For me personally, I’m a classic introvert. And I just cannot get on board with Instagram Stories no matter how hard I (don’t) try. I find it largely vacuous. But does that mean there’s no value in it? Certainly not. I regularly talk to my clients about how they need to consider it. (Part of being a good consultant is not being led by your personal beliefs and limitations.)

I run a podcast, which I absolutely love doing. But what do I do? I interview and chat to others. The idea of filling 30 minutes by myself sends shivers down my spine. And I’m also not a big fan of video, live or not. I tried it for a few months, but it just wasn’t ‘me’. It didn’t feel natural and led to my mum of all people saying she just couldn’t watch it! (I accept that my mum isn’t my target audience but she does, after all, know me quite well!)

Focus On Where You’ll Make an Impact

What I personally needed to do was to focus on forms of content that suit my character: blogs, podcast interviews and the like where I’m not relying on my (non-existent) personality to get me through. For you, that might be something different.

The key is to channel your efforts towards the types of content that you are personally attracted to. The things that you can make a real go of. The things you’ll stick with for months and for years.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/05/10/hate-instagram-stories/feed/0Four Critical Statistics Every Comms Pro Should Know & Understandhttps://paulsutton.co/2018/05/02/critical-communications-pr-statistics/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/05/02/critical-communications-pr-statistics/#respondTue, 01 May 2018 23:20:22 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4102This is just a guess, but when David Bowie wrote “turn and face the strange” in the lyrics to Changes in 1971, I don’t think he was referencing the communications industry some 47 years in the future. But let’s withhold disbelief for just a second and assume I’m wrong. What absolutely incredible foresight the man […]

This is just a guess, but when David Bowie wrote “turn and face the strange” in the lyrics to Changes in 1971, I don’t think he was referencing the communications industry some 47 years in the future.

But let’s withhold disbelief for just a second and assume I’m wrong. What absolutely incredible foresight the man had! Because it’s hard to imagine five words as pertinent to us today as those.

All around us things are cha-cha-changing at an incredible rate. I count myself as someone who’s at least aware of and trying to be informed about what’s happening, and yet it honestly scares the bejesus out of me sometimes what I don’t know.

Founder of Don’t Cry Wolf John Brown wrote this week that “there is something wonderfully liberating when you realise how utterly stupid you are” prior to evangelising about the benefits of ensuring you set aside chunks of time just to learn.

It’s something I completely agree with him on. It’s all too easy to keep going, head down, day after day after day, and go through an entire year without reading that book or subscribing to that podcast or attending that conference.

In the spirit of prompting you to think about what exactly it is that you don’t know, here are four vital statistics that everyone working in communications and public relations should take on board and research around.

1. Within the next two years, 50% of all searches will be voice searches

‘So what?’, you might ask. ‘I work in communications, not SEO or advertising.’ Well consider this. Voice search queries are both longer than text searches and different in structure, and that affects what results Google displays.

Whereas when searching Google with a keyboard you might write ‘best meeting place Kensington’, when searching using your voice your behaviour changes. You’re more likely to say ‘where is the best place to hold a meeting in Kensington?’ When we use voice search we tend to explicitly ask questions with the expectation that our device will reply with an answer.

So if voice search is becoming so prevalent and we want our company or our clients to be found on the web, we need to start changing the way we write content.

The point being, the AI behind voice-activated devices is getting smarter and smarter. If as communicators we want to stay relevant, we need to start to understand context and the intent behind the questions we ask search engines, and we need to learn to write content in a natural, conversational voice that answers the specific questions consumers are asking.

Still not convinced? The number of millennials who use voice-enabled digital assistants will climb to over 39% within the next year. Get on the bus now or you’ll be running behind it waving your arms frantically to get it to slow down before you know it.

2. 45% of jobs could already be automated using currently demonstrated technologies

Let’s not beat around the bush with this one, artificial intelligence is going to change the face of the communications industry for good. It’s up to you ensure that you keep abreast of it and adapt to new technologies as and when they arise. Because if you don’t, you could very well find yourself with a redundant skillset.

As an example let’s take copywriting, one of the most fundamental skills of any communications professional. Automated writing is already in use by organisations like the Press Association, the Associated Press, the New York Times and the Washington Post. And it’s only a matter of time before technologies such as Arria’s natural language generation tool (already used by the likes of Vodafone, Deloitte, PepsiCo, GE and a whole load more) start working their way into the mainstream.

AI and automation won’t necessarily lead to job losses, but they will lead to job redefinitions.

Many of the activities currently undertaken within the PR function can (and will) be done by machines in the near future, necessitating the transformation of business processes and the demarcation of job roles.

It could actually be very good news for those willing to understand and embrace the technology. But the key is just that: learning about and embracing it, and not running from it.

3. 23% of the UK population listen to podcasts every month

The podcasting boom is showing no signs of slowing down. 15.3 million people in the UK have listened to a podcast in the last month, and those working in communications and public relations are perfectly positioned to take advantage of this.

Acast’s quarterly Audio Intelligence report shows that podcast listeners in the UK tend to be millennials, with 71% falling into the 16-34 age bracket, and one in five of those listening to five or more podcasts per week. To be clear, that’s 2.3 million millennials listening to nearly a podcast per day.

The average podcast listener spends over three and a half hours listening each week, so the demand for interesting and good quality audio is clearly there. And yet comms people are still very slow to recommend podcasting as a tactic, with many people I’ve spoken to admitting to being a bit blinded by what seems to be a very technical area.

The thing is, we may not be technical wizards but we do understand what makes a good story.

(And by the way, you don’t need to be a technical wizard; anyone can make a podcast, trust me!) So before podcasting becomes yet another medium saturated with mediocrity, get in there, learn the process and come up with some ideas.

4. Facebook’s Daily Active Users Grew by 3.4% in Q1 2018

Why’s this significant? Because Facebook has just gone through the most tumultuous time in its history. It all but killed organic reach for brands when it revamped the newsfeed, and then it faced massive criticism over the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, resulting in Mark Zuckerberg having to testify before Congress.

But it’s becoming very apparent that Facebook’s user base couldn’t really care less. It’s not that we’re not concerned about our personal data, it’s just that we consider giving access to our data to use the platform for free to be an equitable trade.

And so between January and March this year Facebook added 48 million daily active users (1 million of them in the UK) to hit 1.449 billion. It now has 2.196 billion monthly active users, and both are up 13% year-on-year. That’s quite a lot of people.

There’s a lot of negativity in the news and the blogosphere surrounding brands using Facebook as a result of the newsfeed changes. Is it a waste of time? Is it impossible to get a financial return?

As I said in a recent post, what we are seeing is not the end of Facebook marketing, it’s the end of non-strategic Facebook marketing and publishing content for content’s sake. Learn to use Facebook strategically and there are still huge opportunities.

Want to find out more?

Stephen Waddington, Deirdre Breakenridge, Emily Leary, Jim Hawker, Michael Taggart and Daryl Willcox are all joining me to discuss each of these topic areas and more at Digital Download Live in June. The event will address the key challenges for the PR and communications industry in a varied mix of audience-led Q&As, interactive workshops and highly informative presentations.

Digital Download Live is built around the concept of collaborative learning, with spaces limited to just 50 people to ensure you can get fully involved and get answers to all of your questions. It takes place on 7th June at the rather awesome London Art House in Islington.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/05/02/critical-communications-pr-statistics/feed/0Ditching Social Media is a Bandwagon Brands Shouldn’t Jump Onhttps://paulsutton.co/2018/04/25/leave-social-media-bandwagon/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/04/25/leave-social-media-bandwagon/#respondTue, 24 Apr 2018 23:00:28 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4092The ‘social media is pointless for brands’ rhetoric has reached a crescendo over the last week or two. It’s nearly impossible to turn anywhere on the web at the moment without someone questioning the value of Facebook or Twitter or Instagram for brands. The Cambridge Analytica data scandal kicked things off, with the #DeleteFacebook movement […]

The ‘social media is pointless for brands’ rhetoric has reached a crescendo over the last week or two. It’s nearly impossible to turn anywhere on the web at the moment without someone questioning the value of Facebook or Twitter or Instagram for brands.

The Cambridge Analytica data scandal kicked things off, with the #DeleteFacebook movement picking up buzz and creating debate among users. Brands understandably voiced their own concerns, with ISBA (Incorporated Society of British Advertisers) seeking direct reassurance from Facebook and brands including Playboy and Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla shutting down their Pages.

Even as recently as two days ago, a new report created headlines to the effect that alcohol brands are fleeing Twitter, citing the fact that 42% of the top 100 major spirits and liqueur accounts have not posted at all within the past month.

‘Social media use has peaked for brands’, said some. ‘The beginning of a downward trend’, said others. ‘Brands are finally waking up to the fact that it’s all rather pointless’, has become a common refrain.

Well to put it bluntly, I don’t buy it. In fact, I think it’s bullshit.

And so do some of the big names in the world of digital communications.

Leave Social Media to Those Who Understand It

For many brands, social networks continue to drive value. When used strategically with proper planning and thought, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be used to pinpoint-target very specific audiences at scale.

They can be used to distribute valuable content that resonates with those audiences to create awareness, improve brand perception, generate a predisposition to purchase and to encourage loyalty. And the impact can be measured extremely effectively.

Unfortunately, arguably the majority of brands both large and small have mistaken accessibility for the belief that social media marketing is a) cheap and b) easy. It’s not.

A piecemeal and non-strategic approach to social media tends to result in poor content being pumped out far and wide, gaining little interaction and even less return on the time or money spent on it. Far from improving brand perception and increasing the likelihood of purchase, such content irritates social media users and damages fragile brand relationships.

Without an effective strategy it’s highly unlikely that there’s any tangible benefit to social media. But does that mean brands should just dump it?

“Earlier this year, I was at a social media conference and you would have thought the sky was falling in”, says Gini. “’Social media sucks’, ‘content marketing sucks’, ‘nothing works anymore’. I was almost gleeful at the gloom and doom because it represents so much opportunity.

If everyone is complaining that nothing works anymore, and brands are leaving social media entirely, there is a great upside for the rest of us. You keep complaining and recommending leaving social media so the rest of us can improve what’s there!”

That last point is particularly relevant. Talking to another friend of mine, founder of fintech comms agency FOCO Michael Taggart, he said: “The answer to doing something bad is to do it better, not to stop doing it”. Quite.

Wetherspoons, for example, has cut off a key digital communications channel with loyal customers. If nothing else, it has lost an important method of dealing with customer service issues that will in all likelihood now end up on a review site rather than being contained within social media.

Figure It Out

“Last year, the CMO of Mercedes Benz said: “Social media is the epicenter of digital marketing.” I believe that to be true”, says Mark Schaefer. “Social media is just beginning. It is the way people connect, discover and communicate today. How can you not be part of that? [Wetherspoons] is leaving the building, so to speak.”

Back to Gini: “Social media may be dead for some. But from my perspective, that’s pretty short-sighted. Just like email, people are on social media, and it doesn’t matter if you’re B2B or B2C, they’re there.

Your goal is to have a strategy that allows you to use social media in a way that generates results. It’s even more fun today to figure it out than it has been since 2008. You just have to say to yourself ‘OK, this isn’t working because it’s off strategy’ and switch things up.

The glorious thing about social media is you have some runway to test what works and what doesn’t work. Go out there and be your bad self – it is still possible.”

‘Yeah, but if Elon Musk is ditching it, why wouldn’t we?’, you might ask. Well…what if I said the SpaceX and Tesla Facebook Pages weren’t actually deleted?

As it turns out, a developer has uncovered the fact that the Pages are merely unpublished, meaning they’re just temporarily offline and can be reactivated at any time. You know, just in case…

And you know all those predictions of doom in the wake of Cambridge Analytica? About how users were going to leave Facebook in droves out of concern for their data? Social media use has increased over the last three months, not declined. In the UK alone, there were one million new Facebook users between January and March 2018, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 2%. So much for that theory then.

The Magic Bullet?

“Pacific islanders after World War II thought that if they, like the Americans, cut down trees to create a long rectangular clearing and built a wooden hut at the end of it, metal birds would carry on landing and give riches unknown. Build it and they will come”, says Dan Slee, co-founder of comms2point0.

“There’s a lot of ignorance and FOMO about social media. Wetherspoons is a successful company, so if you ditch your social media like them you’ll be successful too, right?

Wrong, actually. Or rather, probably wrong. Put simply, it’s down to you to understand what good social media communications can and can’t do.”

Now, to be extremely clear, I’m not saying you absolutely must be on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or anywhere else for that matter. It’s horses for courses.

Social media is not a magic bullet. It never was. Those who’ve made a success of it have invested lots of time and money and worked very hard to understand it, to work things out and to get where they are now.

But what I am saying is that you can’t make a success of any social network without a strategy. What we’re seeing now is not the beginning of the end for social media marketing, it’s the beginning of the end for a lack of strategic social media marketing and for brands posting crap on the internet. And for that, hallelujah!

Last words to Mark Schaefer: “Social media in some form will become more important, not less important, over time.”

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/04/25/leave-social-media-bandwagon/feed/0Wetherspoons Quitting Social Media is Petulant & Nonsensicalhttps://paulsutton.co/2018/04/16/wetherspoons-social-media/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/04/16/wetherspoons-social-media/#respondMon, 16 Apr 2018 17:06:27 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4084Amid a massive flurry of publicity, pub chain JD Wetherspoons announced today that it is closing all of its social media accounts with immediate effect. The specific reason was unclear, but could be one of trolling, data concerns or the addictive nature of social media depending on where you read. The ensuing media frenzy sparked […]

Amid a massive flurry of publicity, pub chain JD Wetherspoons announced today that it is closing all of its social media accounts with immediate effect. The specific reason was unclear, but could be one of trolling, data concerns or the addictive nature of social media depending on where you read.

The ensuing media frenzy sparked lots of questions about the business value of social media and whether in 2018 companies can get by without it. I was invited onto both BBC Breakfast News and the ITV Evening News to talk about the company’s decision, so the issue was clearly high on the agenda.

My view is that Wetherspoons’ quitting its entire social media estate of some 900 profiles across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is at best illogical and at worst bizarre and petty.

Wetherspoons Chairman Tim Martin said he took the decision after becoming increasingly concerned by increasing reports of MPs and public figures being targeted by trolls and following the Facebook Cambridge Analytica data scandal. He also expressed a view that there is an unhealthy “compulsion” among social media users to spend too much time on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

It’s hard to disagree with him on that front.

But he also said that Wetherspoons’ staff were spending an increasing amount of time dealing with social media messages and that he was not convinced that being on social media sites brought any commercial benefit to the business.

And that, my friends, is where my empathy and agreement with Mr Martin ends. He is missing the point by a country mile. People spend too long on social media…so we’ll stop using social media. Huh?

The Commercial Value of Social Media

One of my first clients after I established myself as an independent digital marketing consultant was one of the largest brewing and pub chains in the UK, Greene King. (Disclosure: I worked on this client as part of a retained contract with Popcorn PR.) I worked with Greene King for nearly two years.

When I first encountered the organisation’s use of of social media it was, like Wetherspoons, difficult to identify a discernible value. Posts were largely either self-promotional guff or responses to customers hacked off because their burger wasn’t delivered quickly enough when they visited The Red Lion the other day. Growth was stagnant. It was a sea of negativity and corporate rubbish.

My first job was to wade through all of that and pick out the seeds of positivity. Of which, it has to be said, there weren’t many. But I put the work in and devised a strategy that put the emphasis back on the customer and nipped any negativity in the bud.

What I didn’t do was throw my toys out of the pram and suggest they just shut down all of their social media profiles because it was too much like hard work to prove commercial value.

Within a couple of months the tone of those profiles had turned completely around and the accounts were growing in size. The self-promotional ‘come and have a pint’ messages were replaced with information that was genuinely interesting to their customers. And while negative comments did still appear of course, the way they were dealt with brought a new positivity to the profiles and painted the brand in a new light.

Customer Service Will Suffer

For me, Wetherspoons has cut off its nose to spite its face with this ridiculous decision. It’s difficult to say whether the lack of social media profiles will affect the company as there are other factors at play.

For example, the pub trade in general has been in decline for a number of years as the off-trade continues to grow. We now buy more alcohol to drink at home than we do in the pub. And what do we do at home while consuming beer and wine? We spend time on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For this reason, Mr Martin has in the past laid at least part of the blame for declining pub traffic at the feet of Facebook.

Sounds a bit like sour grapes now, doesn’t it? And how do you pick apart the lack of a social media presence from what’s already an industry in decline?

But what’s not difficult to say is that not having Facebook Pages and Twitter profiles is going to make customer service a whole lot more difficult for Wetherspoons. I know from my Greene King days that the first place people turn when they have an issue with a pub is social media. And just because you’re not there doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

The difference is that Wetherspoons will no longer be able to deal with those issues. It may not even see them. And what that says to me is that Wetherspoons is a company that would rather just not have to listen to customer complaints.

Lack of Strategy

If Wetherspoons was not seeing any value in social media it was because it wasn’t using it well. 900 social media profiles?! That’s insane! As I believe someone once said: “Ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat!”

And all the chain did was pump out self-promotional messages that no-one wanted to hear. It’s no wonder engagement was low. In 2018, social media users really do not care about what you have to say about you. What they do care about is you adding value to their lives.

So instead of quitting social media, maybe Mr Martin should have taken a long, hard look about how to best utilise it. Maybe he should have employed someone who knew what they were doing and taken some professional advice.

As it stands though, the less mindless drivel that’s posted on the internet, the better. So from that perspective, good riddance Wetherspoons.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/04/16/wetherspoons-social-media/feed/0Why is PR Sleepwalking Into the Threat of Artificial Intelligence?https://paulsutton.co/2018/04/04/pr-threat-artificial-intelligence/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/04/04/pr-threat-artificial-intelligence/#respondWed, 04 Apr 2018 02:04:47 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4062Automation was ranked a lowly 11th out of 11 in a list of the challenges facing the PR industry in this year’s CIPR State of the Profession report. And yet in the same report, in the list of activities most commonly undertaken, three of the top five factors were copywriting/editing, media relations and social media […]

Automation was ranked a lowly 11th out of 11 in a list of the challenges facing the PR industry in this year’s CIPR State of the Profession report. And yet in the same report, in the list of activities most commonly undertaken, three of the top five factors were copywriting/editing, media relations and social media relations, all of which are at very high risk of automation.

But amid the 34+ sessions at PR Week’s PR360 conference this year there’s not a single one about automation or AI. Not one. The conference website doesn’t even mention it!

So what’s going on? Why do we not see AI technology as a threat when much of what we currently do will soon be able to be done my machines? Do we simply not believe that?

Ignorance is Bliss

My personal belief is that communications professionals have an ‘it’ll never happen to me’ attitude. Because we’ve not encountered AI personally yet, we think our jobs and our agencies are safe. We think that our attention to detail when tracking and analysing the interests of journalists is unbeatable. We don’t think that any robot will ever be able to write with the creativity or humanity that we can.

Well here’s news: it’s not and they already can.

At last year’s Digital Download Live event I showed the audience two extracts of sports commentary, one written by a journalist and one written by a robot, and asked them to identify which was written by the human. About half the room guessed right, which is nothing more than chance.

That was a year ago, which is an age in technological terms. And yet still we choose not to believe what we’re being told.

PR & Communications Jobs Are Under Threat

In November 2017 at the Digital Enterprise Festival I sat and listened open-mouthed to Professor of Robotics & AI Jeremy Wyatt explain how companies like Arria have developed natural language generation tools that empower users to generate written narratives in up to 50 different languages in just seconds based on data that you provide them.

“There will be a massive shift in the types of jobs that are available”, said Wyatt. “The marginal cost of machine learning production is zero, so [things like automated journalism] will be extremely fast to roll out [once the tools are built].”

There is a video of Wyatt’s talk available exclusively to subscribers in the members area of the Digital Download website.

Back in the CIPR State of the Profession report, one of the conclusions was that “public relations faces a long-term challenge to establish sources of value to counter the risks posed by new technology”. Sarah Hall said in the same podcast already referenced: “When I read the links and books I was sent in terms of the threat of technology I literally took a deep breath. I really believe we’re sleepwalking into this.”

The CIPR is so concerned by artificial intelligence that in February it set up the #AIinPR panel, led by Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum Stephen Waddington, with a brief to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on public relations and the wider business community.

I asked Stephen what he makes of the disparity in the CIPR report and the threat to the industry. “In my view, our business needs to take a cold shower and wake up to automation and artificial intelligence”, he said. “An open mind and willingness to continually learn is critical. The discussion around AI is characterised by fear and uncertainty. It’s techno-panic and it isn’t helpful. There aren’t many tools [Ed: currently…] that use AI in PR, but the growing impact of technology in every area of practice is undeniable.”

Machine Learning is Not Science Fiction

Maybe it’s the terminology that we don’t see as a threat. Phrases like ‘robots’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ throw up images of the Terminator. It’s the science fiction we grew up reading about and watching in movies.

Can you picture the Terminator sitting down in front of a laptop writing a news article? No, me neither. But what ‘AI and robots’ refers to is software, not hardware. It’s machine learning and intelligent computer programs. And if deep neural networks are already a reality and quantum computing is now realistically on the horizon, then why on earth should writing a 1500 word article better, quicker and, importantly, much, much cheaper than humans be anything remotely approaching a challenge?

The #AIinPR panel’s initial work is already underway. “An initial project has characterised 95 tools, with more to follow”, explains Stephen. “These tools address almost every area of public relations workflow including research, planning, listening, stakeholder mapping and measurement. Our next project is an assessment of the impact of technology on skills and practice today and in five years’ time based on the Global Alliance Capabilities Framework.”

So what can we do about this challenge?

Take Action NOW

I thoroughly recommend following everything to do with the #AIinPR project.

Stephen will be talking about the initial findings of the panel as well as answering your questions about what you can do to combat the threat of automation at Digital Download Live on 26th April.

He also urges practitioners to start by “exploring native tools on platforms like Google, Twitter and LinkedIn” and to “explore the third party tool market – seek out tools that automate administration or help you work more efficiently or smarter”.

We’ve watched huge companies like Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us go out of business because they didn’t adapt to the changing technological environment. Is it such a stretch to think that the same could happen to the communications industry?

While the ‘entire industry’ is seriously overstating the case, I don’t believe what Sarah Hall says about “half the industry” is doing so.

Stephen is more circumspect, stating that “there will always be a need for practitioners to help communication with publics irrespective of the medium or channel. That’s the job of public relations”. However, he does also say that “individual organisations and practitioners that fail to adapt will struggle, as they have with every generation of technology.”

So to put it simply, DO NOT BE ONE OF THOSE WHO STRUGGLES.

Pay attention to people like Stephen and Sarah and Gini Dietrich. Seek out their opinions and take opportunities to talk to them about AI. Be open-minded to things you read from specialists outside of PR and think about the implications.

Right now, if you’re going to invest anywhere, it should be in learning as much as you can about things like machine learning and automation and voice recognition. You will thank yourself for it in a couple of years time when everyone else is in panic mode.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/04/04/pr-threat-artificial-intelligence/feed/0How to Lock Down Your Facebook Datahttps://paulsutton.co/2018/03/26/facebook-data/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/03/26/facebook-data/#respondMon, 26 Mar 2018 06:17:29 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4033Concerns around the Facebook data we voluntarily provide in return for the free use of the platform have been high in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. What this debacle has proven above anything else is that our personal data can be and is used to manipulate our opinions, our beliefs and our behaviour. […]

Concerns around the Facebook data we voluntarily provide in return for the free use of the platform have been high in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

What this debacle has proven above anything else is that our personal data can be and is used to manipulate our opinions, our beliefs and our behaviour. Personally, I think it’s the tip of the iceberg.

And yet most people just don’t care enough to want to do anything about it. We accept that if we want to use Facebook for free we have to give away our data so that advertisers will pay Facebook to try and sell us stuff.

And from an advertisers perspective, the fact that they can micro-target us by our lifestyle interests, how old our kids are, what our income is, what postcode we live in, what our beliefs are and an enormous number of very scary and very accurate variables is hugely valuable. It generates results and it cuts costs.

These were the points I was keen to get across when I was invited to debate how the Cambridge Analytica mess might impact Facebook on BBC television’s Victoria Derbyshire programme on Friday. You can watch that below.

But given that the vast majority of us aren’t worried enough about our personal Facebook data to want to quit the network, what can we do to minimise the risk? Facebook’s privacy settings are notoriously impenetrable and many people leave them on default as a result. And that’s not good given that, in a nutshell, that means anyone can see anything.

Follow the process below and you can lock down your Facebook data (at least to a reasonable level) without impacting the way you use the network. It’ll only take you about 20 minutes, which has got to be worth it for the sake of your personal details, right?

Step One: Review What Data Facebook Holds on You

Facebook gives you the option to download all of your data at any time. And even if you do nothing else here, please do this. You’ll be stunned by what you find. Every photo you’ve ever uploaded, every page you’ve liked, every ad you’ve interacted with, the date and time of every login…it’s all here.

Follow the instructions here. You’ll receive an email inside of an hour with a zip file that you can review at your leisure. Have a stiff drink handy.

Step Two: Check Your Login Security

Before we get into the details of privacy settings and third party access and ad settings, let’s do some basic housekeeping. I’m going to assume that you have a strong password or we really are in trouble! I use and recommend LastPass to generate and store passwords made up of 12 random characters. Even I don’t know what my Facebook password is, but I don’t need to as LastPass manages it for me.

That aside, first of all and on the desktop version of Facebook, click the down arrow in the top right corner and then click on Settings.

From there, click on Security and Login. There are two things to do here. The first is to set up two factor authentication on the account to prevent someone else logging into your account from a new device.

The second is to clear access from all devices you’ve previously logged in from. Under Where You’re Logged In you’ll see a list of all the devices that could potentially be used to access your account. I was amazed when I looked at this; at least a dozen mobiles and computers when I currently use just three devices. Use the Log Out of All Sessions option to force log out of all of them. Combined with a strong password and two factor authentication you just seriously minimised the chances of being hacked.

Step Three: Tighten Up Third Party Access

This is really important. The Cambridge Analytica issue stemmed from 270,000 people who took part in a personality quiz on Facebook, which opened up a social graph of over 50 million users.

Every time you login to a website or an app with the Facebook option because you can’t be bothered to think of a password (see LastPass above), you are giving that website or app access to your Facebook data. Every time you take a quiz through Facebook and link your account to do so, you’re doing the same. The vast majority are benign, but if even one passes your Facebook data on you could be targeted for unscrupulous and unethical reasons and find yourself voting for Trump or to leave the EU. Imagine THAT!

So you’re going to spend a few minutes on this one.

Head to Settings > Apps. You’ll see a list of all of the third parties that have access to your Facebook data. Depending on your habits it could be a very long list. But you need to look at each app individually and with a critical eye.

Remove any apps that you no longer use. That quiz you did about pets back in 2015 that can still access your personal data? Remove access. The website that you could log into using a password? Remove access and go and create a proper account with a secure password instead. Be fierce.

With the apps that are left, you can change what information each can see and use on an individual basis using the pen/edit settings icon. Do they really need to know a specific detail to operate? If not, remove access to that piece of data.

This is where you can make a real difference to the security of your Facebook data and to who can see what. It’s worth spending time on and revisiting occasionally. Stick a reminder in your calendar once a month to review it. It’ll take no time whatsoever if you keep on top of it.

Step Four: Adjust Your Privacy Settings

In Settings > Privacy there are several things to check and adjust. First, set the default for who can see your future posts to Friends. If you want to post more widely, you can adjust each post individually when you publish. Second, also limit your past posts to Friends. This is a one click method of tightening up your entire account.

Next, limit who can see your friends list. Why does anyone need to know who you’re connected to? And call me paranoid, but if someone can get to your friends they’re a step closer to getting to you! Now remove the option for people to find you using your email address and phone number. No one uses that, so lock it down.

Finally in this section, unless there’s a good reason otherwise (like you want people to be able to Google you for some reason), stop search engines from linking to your profile. Giving Google access to your Facebook profile (even if not the data inside it) is just about the biggest online privacy double whammy there is!

Step Five: Review Who Can Interact With You

Next, hop to Settings > Timeline & Tagging and make sure that you limit who can post to your timeline and who can tag you. This one is down to personal preference (you may not want anyone to be able to tag you) but at least limit these to Friends.

Step Six: Review What Ads You See

Advertising is part of the Facebook experience. And I say that not as someone who uses ads, but as someone who accepts that there is a pay off between Facebook being free and being exposed to advertising.

Given that, why not make the effort to understand what sort of ads you might be presented with? Head to Settings > Ads and review what you see there.

If there are advertisers who might have your Facebook data, whose websites you may have visited or whose ads you’ve clicked but whom you’re no longer interested in, get rid of them. Do the same with interests.

Then check how Facebook categorises and groups you and remove or correct anything that’s not accurate (most if not all will be, which is the scary thing!).

A word of caution: don’t be too harsh. Advertising is inevitable, so what you’re trying to do here is to help Facebook to help you by showing you stuff that is relevant to you. Delete everything and you’ll start being served with ridiculous ads that will just annoy you.

So there you go. Six steps and 20 minutes of your time for a relatively secure Facebook profile. I say ‘relatively’ because the only way to be truly safe is to delete your account. But we both know you’re not going to do that, so please invest a little of your time to lock things down and tell your friends to read this and do the same. Look after yourself and each other.

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PR and communications professionals: don’t get left behind by advances in digital technology. The full agenda for Digital Download Live 2018 is now available.

Click here now for details on the line up, guest speakers and tickets.

]]>https://paulsutton.co/2018/03/26/facebook-data/feed/0The Four Horsemen of the PR-pocalypsehttps://paulsutton.co/2018/03/05/pr-pocalypse/
https://paulsutton.co/2018/03/05/pr-pocalypse/#commentsMon, 05 Mar 2018 06:56:50 +0000https://paulsutton.co/?p=4009“And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, silence covered the sky.” The Book of Revelation 8:1 Over the last year or two a perfect storm has been brewing around the public relations industry. It’s one that, if not managed very carefully by communications practitioners, could have a huge impact on the industry and quite […]

“And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal,
silence covered the sky.”

The Book of Revelation 8:1

Over the last year or two a perfect storm has been brewing around the public relations industry. It’s one that, if not managed very carefully by communications practitioners, could have a huge impact on the industry and quite possibly wipe out large swathes of agencies, freelancers and in-house practitioners alike. Don’t believe me? Read on.

At last count, the UK PR industry employed approximately 83,000 peopleand it was growing fast, up by an impressive 34% in the three years since 2013. On the face of it, that paints a very healthy picture.

But that was before the last US Presidential Election and the explosion of ‘fake news’. It was before levels of trust in stories disseminated on Facebook plummeted and before Facebook responded by doing its very best to kill ‘news’ on the network completely.

It was before technological leaps in areas such as automation, artificial intelligence and voice recognition. And it was before brands started to actively question whether influencers actually had any influence whatsoever.

It is reasonable to assume that the number of people currently employed in PR is still somewhere around the 80,000 mark. It could be anywhere between 75,000 and 90,000, but to my knowledge there’s not been a significant shift in people either leaving or joining the industry in the last couple of years.

What I’d dearly love, however, is a crystal ball to see what public relations looks like in 2020. I’d put good money on that number having fallen back to pre-2013 levels. PR in its conventional sense may very well have peaked as a discipline.

All the Gear, No Idea

Until this point, a large section of the industry has been winging it when it comes to truly embracing change, and it’s been doing that very successfully. Many of the agencies I come across still work very tactically, still focus primarily on media and influencer relations, and pay lip service to things like SEO and emarketing, for example. They still measure soft PR metrics rather than making a real effort to evaluate the financial return of what they do for their clients. They don’t employ strategies that dovetail with business goals.

But we’re going to see a shake up over the next two to five years where only those willing to truly embrace digital technologies and adapt their business models around them will thrive.

I believe there are four key developments that will drive this. Each by itself is a threat in its own right, but in combination they form a ‘PR-pocalypse’, an ominous force that you will not be able to ignore. Let’s look at the menace of each in turn.

The First Horseman (Pestilence): Fake News

When Donald Trump entered The White House in January 2017 it sparked a sequence of events that, though seemingly unlinked, have come together to form a dark cloud over the public relations industry.

The way Trump ran his presidential campaign throughout 2016 by essentially publishing so much propaganda and misinformation that it at best distracted from Hillary Clinton’s reasoned arguments and at worst simply drowned them out, made ethical PR look rather passé. A Buzzfeed analysis found that the top 20 fake news stories about the election obtained more engagement on Facebook than the top 20 factual news stories from 19 major media outlets.

The pro-Brexit campaign in the lead up to the 2016 referendum followed Trump’s blueprint, with the infamous £350 million per week saving figure the biggest example of a complete fabrication that 52% of the population took as read. ‘Alternative facts’ were spreading like a plague.

In September 2017, global PR agency Bell Pottinger collapsed after a campaign for South African president Jacob Zuma, that was according to the PRCA“likely to inflame racial discord”, came to light. It further increased the feeling among the general populace that PR was all about dirty tricks, lies and highly questionable ethics.

It doesn’t matter that for the vast, vast majority of the PR industry the idea of fake news is abhorrent or that ethical conduct is second nature. What matters is that if people don’t trust what they read in the media (whether that be conventional or social media) it leaves PR professionals with an uphill task convincing anyone of anything.

And if we can’t do that, there is quite simple no public relations industry.

The Second Horseman (War): Influencer Decline

In January this year vlogger and self-proclaimed “social media influencer” Elle Darby got herself into a spot of bother when an extremely naive email approach to The White Moose Cafe in Dublin went viral. Top lifestyle blogger and presenter Emily Leary and I discussed it in Episode Three of the Digital Download podcast.

Beyond the specifics of this particular incident however, the story sparked a bigger and, to my mind, very long overdue debate about the nature of influence. This centred around two major points: follower numbers and return on investment.

Buying tens or hundreds of thousands of followers is easy. It takes a small amount of money and no time whatsoever. Stephen Waddington ran an experiment over Christmas this year to prove the point.

But EARNING tens or hundreds of thousands of followers is very difficult. It takes either great skill or a hell of a lot of time; normally both. While this is great news for people like Emily Leary, it’s bad news for the hundreds or thousands of aspiring ‘social media influencers’ out there.

Mark my words, there’s an influencer marketing crash coming. And others such as leading influencer marketing blogger Scott Guthrie agree. In his post ‘Influencer Marketing is Gaming Itself to Death’, Scott outlines five areas in which influencer marketing is warring with itself.

From a PR perspective, when brands start to question the value of spending £30k on celebrity endorsement or even a few hundred pounds on a sponsored blog post (as they are quite rightly starting to do), there will be less ‘influencers’ out there.

This means that competition among those who actually are influential will increase.

Which means the cost of sponsored campaigns will go up.

And that in turn means there will be less brands willing to pay those costs.

So what happens to the public relations industry when this conflict comes to a head and influencers are priced out of the market for the majority of brands?

The Third Horseman (Famine): Content Visibility

As the truth about the Trump and Brexit campaigns came to light, and as details of the way the Russian Government interfered with voting were revealed, trust in news published on social networks (and specifically Facebook) plummeted.

In the wake of fake news and propaganda, trust in social media platforms dropped in 21 of 28 countries surveyed in the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer over the last year. In the UK, only 24% of people now trust social networks when looking for news and information.

As a direct result of this, Facebook has responded with a massive algorithm update aimed at wiping fake news off the platform. The by-product? ‘True’ news was wiped off too. Facebook now prioritises conversations between friends, meaning that publishers and, crucially, Page administrators alike are struggling to gain any traction whatsoever.

Journalism fairs better when it comes to trust according to the Edelman study, but opportunities in conventional media relations are becoming fewer with every passing week. Statistical studies show that print news will be pretty much gone by 2020. Digital news publishers have struggled to find an effective business model. And both TV and radio are moving to on-demand models where even advertising doesn’t work. The writing’s been on the wall for years; even as far back as 2015 PR professionals outnumbered journalists.

So if as PR professionals we’re starved of getting our content seen in print, on news websites or across social media, what role do we have?

The Fourth Horseman (Death): Artificial Intelligence

Even if you choose not to accept that the first three Horsemen – fake news, the decline of influencers and limited content visibility – will impact the communications industry in the long term, the sinister threat of the fourth – artificial intelligence – is not one that can easily be dismissed.

Speaking about AI on the Digital Download podcast a few weeks ago, CIPR President Sarah Hall said: “I really believe we’re sleepwalking into this. When I looked at the information I was sent [by the CIPR] in terms of what the threats to the industry are, I literally took a really deep breath. One third to a half of our industry could very easily be wiped out due to automation.”

Such is the extent of the potential issue that the CIPR set up the #AIinPR panel last month; a group of a dozen or so informed and knowledgeable communicators brought together to identify the impact of AI technology and recommend ways to combat and to harness it. Stephen Waddington is presenting a paper at the World Public Relations Forum in Oslo on 22nd April and then discussing the results further in London at Digital Download Live on 26th April (tickets are available here).

AI and automation present quite possibly the most toxic threat that the PR industry has ever known. And as the Horseman that completes a highly malignant quadrumvirate, it could very well be the one that causes the most destruction.

Is the PR-pocalypse Set in Stone?

I’m aware that this post paints a bleak picture that is dark and foreboding. But see this is a portent: a warning of what might be, not necessarily what will be.

Anyone who’s seen Terminator 2 or is a fan of TV series Supernatural knows that Judgement Day may not come!

The CIPR and the PRCA have a huge role to play in helping us to manage the changes on the very near horizon and in limiting damage from the PR-pocalypse. But it cannot all be down to the professional organisations to do this. I believe that the role of educational events, blogs, podcasts, newsletters and social media communications are just as critical if we, as individuals, are to thrive.

We must take individual responsibility for our own development in order to safeguard our careers. We have to seek out and subscribe to information and resources from which we can improve our knowledge and evolve the way we do things, and we have to join groups and attend events where productive conversation takes place from which we can learn. Collaboration is absolutely key, and if you’d like help finding these resources I’m more than happy to point you in the right direction – just contact me.